Kindergarten Christmas Program

Mid-December Claire had her first Kindergarten program. It was kind of a big thing for us being our first school program. She was excited about it and we wanted to do the whole proud parent thing and video tape it all and and make her feel so special. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned. Scott had to work and missed it. I brought both boys and set up my camera thinking I could video tape the whole thing for him. I arrived early, and not wanting my camera to be in everyone's face, I set up my tripod more in the middle of the audience - in the aisle, positioned on the small stage. Once the kids came in though and sat down on the steps, I quickly realized my set up would not work at all. The first row of the audience was too close to the front row of the kids and the front row was standing on the ground, not on the steps like I thought. Claire was in the front row, so I couldn't see her at all! :(
I then made the mistake of running up front (to at least get a picture of her with her tree) and leaving Everett behind. I learned my lesson. Everett was not in a familiar setting so I don't blame him too much for getting upset when I left him with Seth only a split second. However, it was not great timing for a melt down from my three year old. I headed back to my seat with my camera, trying to plan what I was going to do about my set up (cuz it obviously wasn't going to work). Before we even reached our seats, Everett decided to throw a full blown three-year-old very loud temper tantrum. The teacher was opening up the program with some speech and I'm pretty sure no one heard it over Everett's screaming. I was so embarrassed and tried to shush him, and he seemed to just get louder. I tried bringing him to the back of the gym (which carried the sound of his screaming even more, making it, in my mind, the loudest thing ever).

Claire and her class started singing while I was in the back trying to calm Everett and Seth was left abandoned sitting in his car seat back at our chairs. I'm grateful he didn't start crying too. Everything was just not going as planned. I wanted to cry.
Everett started calming down a little though and I was able to put him down and get Seth. I brought Seth to the back where we were, then got my camera back out and tried getting some video of Claire. Her favorite song was the "Happiest Christmas Tree" one and I really wanted to at least record that one. The video is horribly wobbly, you can barely see Claire in the front left side, and you can still hear some of Everett's whimpers but I got a little of it recorded for Daddy and for memory sake. :p Later on, I got a slightly better view of Claire because I was holding my camera as high as I could over my head and I was on my tippy toes. I probably was a funny sight, but I had already been embarrassed enough, I didn't care at that point. :)
Claire sang so well though. She knew all the songs and loved performing in front of all the moms and dads. She wasn't nervous at all- she's our little performer. :)